Come to Emmanuel, Not Judea

With the annual celebration of Christ’s first advent upon us, believers will happily search the Scriptures to find prophecies of His nativity in the Old Testament. Churchgoers will hear songs and lessons of what the ancient Hebrew prophets foretold concerning the Messiah. At Christmas, we will recall the words of Matthew and Luke describing the scene in Judea nearly 2,000 years ago. The Roman emperor will order a census. Joseph and Mary will journey to Bethlehem. The Word made flesh will be wrapped in swaddling cloths. Wise men from the East will pay homage to the Desire of the Nations. The wicked, half-breed King Herod and his murderous soldiers will rampage through Bethlehem and make Rachel weep. Warned by angels, Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus will flee Herod just in time to hide in Egypt until Jesus’s later boyhood.

The blessed celebration of Christ’s nativity conjures up an ethnocentric scene. The sacred, holy words of the prophets are in Hebrew. Though written in Greek, the nativity story is an intensely Hebrew one set in ancient Palestine. The story of Christmas is about the Jewish Messiah.

As such, the season of Christmas can be an emotionally compelling time for less-educated Christians to sympathize with, or LARP as, Jews. It is also an opportunity for Jewish allies to manipulate naive Christians to contribute to Jewish causes, condemn anti-Semitism, and support Jewish political ends.

This article is a brief reminder of why that is both unnecessary and biblically unadvisable.

First, Christ is not only the savior of the Jews. In the wise men, and in the messianic prophecies themselves, we see that the Messiah was intended to save not only those of Hebrew descent, but those of all races who placed their faith in Him. As far back as Gen. 3:15 and 9:27 we see that God would graciously extend His covenant to us Gentiles through the Messiah. And the whole of the New Testament, particularly Paul’s letters, explain that God’s people are those saved by grace through faith, not by race. There are extensive explanations of these theological truths available already at Faith and Heritage. Some examples are here, as well as here, and here. Use the “topics” menu and the search engine on this website to find more relevant articles.

However clear as Paul may have made it, for centuries the early Christians had to combat Jewish violence. The Jews began this during the outset of the New Testament era by persecuting Jesus Christ and the apostles, as documented in the Gospels and the book of Acts.

When we read the Old Testament, we read of God graciously giving a holy Law to His people. That holy covenant was what Jesus spoke of in positive terms and what the prophets called the Israelites back to, over and over again.

The religion that the Jews developed during their time in Canaan, the Babylonian exile, and until today is not the same as what God gave to Moses and the prophets. The religion of the Jews is the pagan, syncretistic, immoral religion of apostates. The Jews turned away from God so completely that Jesus openly, repeatedly, forcibly condemned their leaders in the New Testament. In addition, those Pharisaic leaders have repeatedly lied about and persecuted Christ, the apostles, and every generation of Christians to the present day. They infiltrated both church and state to use them against Christians.

Thus, the love of Judaism is so inappropriate for a Christian that if a Christian had to choose between living among Jews and Muslims, under either the Talmud or the Qur’an, he would be choosing between a group that openly condemns Jesus and the Virgin Mary, (another source here) and a group that honors them. For as bad as Islam is, Christian Zionists should think about how bad Judaism is before cheering as Israeli Jews fire another round of American-funded rockets into Arab homes.

So too he should withhold his praise of the people who killed Jesus, who persecuted the prophets, who have violently assailed the Church through all generations, and who are the chief actors in the ongoing dispossession of white people around the world.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Old Testament messianic prophecies. Jesus is Emmanuel, “God with us.” This Advent and Christmas, let’s treasure the words of the Hebrew prophets, rejoice in God’s fulfilled promise, and share His love with all our fellow men. This is what we do. We are, after all, Christians — not Jews.

Newsletter

Receive F&H Updates By Email:

Email address:

Leave this field empty if you're human:

Faith & Heritage is a consortium of Christian writers from a traditionalist perspective. F&H features a diverse range of opinions among its writers, and any particular opinion expressed is not necessarily indicative of universal agreement among F&H admins or writers.

The superhero genre was one of the last quasi-traditional genres of American pop culture. Batman, Superman, and the other assorted heroes and villains literally came out of the early twentieth-century[…]

About

Remember the days of old; consider the years of many generations; ask your father, and he will show you, your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. - Deuteronomy 32:7-8